Pugno: To Fight
by Zetsubel
Summary: I'm a Marine, not Luke Skywalker. Why am I in this mess? Whatever. My brothers beat me worse. Semper fi, assholes. \Little romance, lot of gore, lot of cursing. PredxHuman./
1. Chapter 1

"Y'know what, forgive me for not wanting to walk RIGHT into one of those giant octopus's nests, okay? One temperamental extraterrestrial at a time, please."

A low warning rumble told me to shut my mouth. I bared my teeth at the giant creature's muscled back, but made sure not to hiss between them. Apparently that's disrespectful and gets you slammed up against a tree. Or impaled.

"… You got a cigarette?"

I dropped at the waist to avoid an annoyed backhand. "Right. Silent. Like a ninja. Got it," I whispered, absently checking the cartridge on my skorpion. I'd been dropped onto this God-forsaken planet with that and my sniper rifle, the M107 .50. They were old models, but when I'd been taken, the family was trying to start their own mercenary operation. Older brothers and cousins get first dibs in that kind of business.

The giant grey muscleman I was dropped here with stopped and crouched. I immediately went down on my knees perpendicular to it, him, whatever, with a moss-covered tree at my back. I tried hearing or smelling whatever he did, like I did every time he stopped, but couldn't get a hint of anything in any direction. It was incredibly frustrating.

Six rounds left in the rifle, with three extra cartridges in my old Army pack, and two extra cartridges for the skorpion. Right next to the tampons. I just had to be on my fucking period when this went down. HAD to be.

After crouching so long my thighs went numb, he moved forward again. I followed. I didn't understand why we had to head right back in the direction we'd barely escaped from. I didn't understand him, either. Clicks and tittering like a pair of those walking wind-up dentures did not a conversation make.

For that matter, I didn't understand why I was following this lug. Maybe because we'd been dropped by parachutes twenty feet from each other, so I knew it wasn't his idea? Apparently logic didn't run thick for both our species, though, because the moment he dropped, a second after me, he was trying to kill me. This is where the 'slammed against a tree' part comes in. In New York where I grew up there weren't many trees, and the few there were in the parks were like saplings compared to these monoliths. And they hurt.

"Strength in numbers," I'd choked out repeatedly like a mantra, before he'd finally let me go and walked - clomped - away. It took me taking out a giant squid on land from 200 feet away before he let me follow without trying to disembowel me for doing so. I didn't know what else to do. His whole demeanor told me he did, so I followed the leader.

Helluva leader, taking me right back into the nest of the things that tried to eat us. But when I threw a hissy fit about it, he brought his arm up so fast I ducked, thinking he was going to hit me. He didn't. Just showed his bare forearm, where a piece of armor with a pop-up screen had been before the attack.

"For fuck's sake, you want to die for a bracelet?" I'd snarled, earning a short, loud bark-roar. And ended up following him again anyway. Maybe it was important. Maybe it was a tracking device to get off this hell-hole. And apparently he could understand me, because every time I made a smartass remark, I was reprimanded in the least gentle of ways.

I was going on a bunch of 'apparently's.

The only time we stumbled on anyone else, they saw him first and shot first. The man looked like Mafia muscle, screaming in Russian. Russian or German, hell if I know. I don't like either of 'em. He was big, he was pissed. But my companion was more big, more pissed. He was hit twice in the chest and didn't bat an eyelash (if he even had them. With that mask, fuck if I knew). He took up the space between them in three quick strides and shoved the Mafia man into a tree trunk so hard by the skull that his head burst. I counted myself lucky that our 'shoved up a tree' encounter had ended a little nicer than that. And maybe wet myself a little. Couldn't tell with the humidity. It managed to intimidate me either way. Just a little.

He never bothered to do anything about the fluorescent green splotches on his chest, and I was too terrified of him at the time to say anything about them. I suddenly felt that if he bled to death I might be just a wee bit better off.

But the same thing happened that always happened when I was scared and wouldn't admit it. I mouthed off. My reflexes thank me for that, because Lord knows my head would be all kinds of splattered all over this forest if I hadn't done six years in the US Marine Corp. prior to this nightmare.

"Hey. Randy Savage."

He whirled with a stance that obviously stated 'I'm going to kill you now'. Oh, there went another little pee.

I held up my right hand defensively and pointed to the left with a trembling finger. In the distance, in a break in the foliage, we had a clear view of the hill next to ours that resembled more of a cliff. Scaling it were three figures too big to be human. When I looked back, he was gone.

"Oh, you motherfucker." He turned on his goddamn camouflage thing. I watched him use it against the squids. Neat trick. Even neater when you actually had it on. Not knowing whether he'd stuck around or not (he didn't strike me as a coward, but fuck, they looked bigger than HIM), I crept closer to the edge of the hill and crouched behind a tree. I zoomed in on them with my sniper, trying not to give off any kind of vibe that I was eyeing them. They looked almost identical to my ex-companion, only much taller with darker skin complexions and longer dreads. In the scope's peripheral I caught what looked to be giant mutant rats with tusks creating a circle around their moving group, muzzles to the ground once every few seconds. It looked like a hunting party.

That whole trying not to give off a vibe thing? Yeah, didn't work. The most slender of the three stopped, stopping his buddies one-by-one in return, and tilted his head slowly up my hill and to me. My heart stuttered. I couldn't move. I felt like the mouse, and he was one big fucking cat.

I saw the shimmer of his camouflage being activated and didn't think about anything other than the fact that he saw me. I pulled the trigger. The damn silencer cut the damage done in half, the bullet pinging loudly off his helmet instead of going through.

"Shit," I said and fled in the opposite direction.

It didn't take long to hear the snarling of the dogs. My legs pumped faster. Downhill was my best option. If they were anything like the dogs back home then they could run longer and faster than I could. I needed all the help I could get from the environment.

A shrub tripped me. For one terrifying minute I tumbled on my side. I fumbled for my skorpion during the fall, and when I finally hit a jutting rock with my back, I didn't give myself a chance to shriek at the pain. I came up guns blazing. And caught one of the fuckers dead in the mouth as it was about to rip my face off. Then I DID scream. I had no idea it was that close, or that fucking fast. Gore spattered my face and I barely took notice. There were at least two other dogs and three big ass hunters right behind them. And I was on my own.

"FUCK you, asshole!" I screamed at the alien who had left me to fend for myself. He was probably watching the whole show.

I braced my feet and slid up the rock with a grunt of pain, knowing it had broken at least two ribs. Growing up with meathead big brothers, you get used to some things.

The other two mutant dogs were circling me and my rock.

"Fucking great," I whispered, spinning back and forth to try and keep my eyes on both of the hissing creatures. The two remaining hunters, not bothering to hide themselves, stood one hundred feet away, arms crossed and watching the fun. Like I was a bait poodle in a pitbull fight. But just because they could be incredibly silent on the rush of the forest floor didn't mean the dogs could be.

I lost track of the alien mutt furthest away from me, trying to keep my sight on the closer one, and it attacked. I heard it before I saw it, ducked my upper body and roundhouse kicked the dog in the chest mid-leap. It wasn't like an Earth dog. It was a lot heavier. Although the hit stopped it from it's initial ripping of my face, the weight of the animal fell on top of me. I jerked my head to side so the massive fangs dug into dirt, and shoved my skorpion into its belly, pulling the trigger hard. It screamed, hot innards flowing onto my torso as the beast was ripped open.

I didn't have time to sit and think about it. The other animal snarled and leaped. I used all my upper body strength to lift its gored, dead partner as a shield. More wicked black blood oozed over my face as the thing's teeth tore into the dead animal's throat instead of mine. I shoved them both away with a scream and stumbled up and onto the rock, then further back, and fell.

I fell a lot further than I thought I would. The brush on the other side of the rock outcropping had hidden the cliff on the other side. I didn't have time to scream again as I fell two hundred feet to the river below.


	2. Darwin

I was always used to people smothering me back home. Italian in blood, our family was always big. Three big brothers and a little sister left little room for private time, especially when your father was a very successful Marine in his time and had contractors practically banging down the door. We always had money and space enough to house my natal family AND grandparents. And it was still so hard to find time to myself, it was suffocating. A big school didn't help. Crowded bunkers didn't help later down the road. I used to add time to myself as a prayer at night.

Floating down the rapids, I wished I was back in my crowded house with my destructive sister and her boyfriends and the animals and grandparents breathing down my neck every time I tried to take a nap, asking if I was okay. Everyone was nosy and wanted to know what everyone else was doing, and it was infuriating.

I wished my nonna would yank me out of the water and demand to know what I was doing for the past ten years since she died. I wished my brothers were there to cannon ball on top of me and call me a pansy when I punched them for it. I wished my sister Carla was there to scoff at me and raid my closet for a college party she was going to queen bee. I wanted my mother to start yelling at me for dripping on her nice hardwood floors. I wanted my father to give me the noogie of all noogies for getting kidnapped by aliens when I was suppose to be in Pakistan shooting some cult leader. Wish, wish, wish.

I faded in and out willingly. Even if I didn't die in the next twenty-four hours, I had no hope of getting off a planet with other planets hanging in the sky instead of a moon. Where it was almost never nighttime. Where giant alien geckos were hunting me down for no reason other than they could.

I was safer just drowning.

So I hated waking up when my limp body floated under a waterfall and was pounded into consciousness. I backpedaled in the water, my back colliding with the rocks behind the heavy wall of water, forcing my tired body up the incline of slippery stone. It was concave behind the waterfall, just enough to give me room to scoot back and sit without being seen from outside.

I wasn't thinking all too clearly. I know I was a conditioned soldier, but Staff Sgt. Leonard never prepared his cadets for alien abduction. I sat there, dripping, staring at the crashing water with dirty blonde bangs falling over my eyes, mourning the loss of my trusty skorpion with random hums of pop songs.

I sat for roughly an hour before moving. My semi-damp clothes rubbed all the wrong places raw. I moved minimally, my senses coming back in small portions. Those things hadn't appeared again. I didn't think about that traitorous companion. He was a lost asset in my mind.

I stopped humming and took a short look around me. It was still bright outside. Behind me was nothing but smooth wall that water had carved over years and years. Survival instinct kicked in. There was enough room to sit, but not lay down or build a fire. I leaned back against the wall and realized I still had my pack on. It was probably the only thing that had saved me from more than a few busted ribs and I'd totally forgotten about it.

My ribcage had been protesting every movement until now and I hadn't noticed. Pain desensitization would come in handy, probably. My bones creaked wearily as I slid the strap for my rifle off and set the gun to one side, then pulled the pack straps down and stretched my legs out so my boot tips touched the water, and placed the pack on my lap. Checking what I had left helped clear my mind further. A well of fear and disbelief was squashed as training kicked in.

I tossed the extra mags for the skorpion into the waterfall. Any unnecessary weight had to go. I had a few MREs, and a black cloak that I was suppose to use to go undercover for a mission that seemed so long ago. I stared at it, then splayed it out as best I could beside me to dry. I might need cover.

Everything else seemed okay. A few stun grenades, a few REAL grenades, rifle ammo, a spare silencer, ruined papers that had been mission specs, and a Glock 17 I'd completely forgotten about stashed at the bottom. Those I didn't toss out. I stuck the wet papers to the wall to leave behind if I ever grew the balls to venture back outside. They floated too easily. I wasn't sure what the terrain looked like outside the waterfall, but I didn't want the chance of the papers being spotted. By the time they dried, if they slipped off, I'd be long gone.

The pack was small and the cloak took up a lot of room, so that was about it. The side pouches were full of tampons and a bowie knife. I stared at it listlessly and stuck it in one of the loops of my cargo pants, the Glock I stuck in a pocket. I'd rather have it out and ready than stuffed in a backpack. The only other thing in the pack was a small waterproof pouch that carried my high-tech phone and iPod. Despite the Marine training and tough guy exterior, I was still a young woman. A young woman who kept an uzi in her underwear drawer, next to the frilly Santa lingerie, but still a woman. The iPod gave me some connections to Earth still. The phone was useless, but the iPod might keep me sane if I was stuck on this rock. Until the battery ran out, anyway.

Dunno what made me go back outside. It could've been the fight or flight instinct still in gear. Or it could have been the freakishly huge furred snake that slithered out of the water and into my little hidey-hole from the water. Whatever it was, I jumped over the creature as fast and as far as I could, and was surprised when I felt rock beneath my boots in the water. I was closer to land than I thought I'd been. I forced myself to be still in the water, waiting for either the snake or the hunters to lash out at me. Neither happened. After several minutes of waiting, I lifted my foot silently from the water and high-stepped to the bank, remembering the full week of water training in BT.

Deciding a higher vantage point would benefit, I swung up into a tree after enough walking away from the little pond and pretty waterfall. It was harder than it was back home. The bark was slippery, the sap more like oil than syrup and coating the entire trunk. I managed. Further up the tree were the strangest birds I'd ever seen in a nest of small bones. They were blue, shimmering, and loaded with an orange beak lined with protruding sharp teeth. Two of them sat side-by-side in the nest, black unblinking eyes that took up most of their heads staring straight at me. I froze mid-stretch, fingertips brushing the next branch up, and waited.

It took seven minutes of just staring at them and their little teeth before I finally, slowly made a move to hoist myself up. One of them ruffled their feathers at the movement, but otherwise they both stayed completely silent, just staring, never blinking. It creeped me the fuck out.

But they weren't attacking, so I wasn't going to bother them. Of course they couldn't grant me the same courtesy. One of them, the larger one, probably the man of the nest, hopped off onto the branch and started hopping toward me.

"Git!" I hissed as the bird fluttered around to my branch, me scooting back as far as I could without the branch thinning out and breaking. The thing swiped at my foot with a reptilian tail I hadn't noticed before, the sides covered in wicked looking spikes almost as long as it's orange chicken legs. What the fuck, man. Even the birds wanted to kill me on this fucking planet.

I leaned forward, bowie ready, waiting for the thing to get close enough. It'd be safer just to shoot it, quieter to slice it's head off. The bird cocked it's head at the knife, then squealed. Loud.

"Shit!" I hissed under my breath, leaning back and crushing it between the tree trunk and my boot. The small body caved easily with a disgusting 'splurt!', but the tail kept moving. I jerked away before it could dig into me and watched the ruined body peel away from the trunk and plummet to the ground. Then the other demon bird started squealing. Acting on instinct I flung the bowie end-over-end directly between it's eyes. The squeal died off, the bird swayed, then splayed across the nest and the green speckled eggs that were hidden beneath the two.

My heart raced in my chest, so hard I could hear the blood rushing in my ears and I brandished the rifle, looking around wildly for any sign of the hunting party. I didn't hear anything, but that fact wasn't helpful. My treacherous companion had moved silently through the under brush despite his enormous size and even though the other three were bigger I was betting they could pull the same trick. Add that onto their invisibility trick and it equaled me screwed.

It took some slippery maneuvering, but I managed to swing myself around the slick trunk to retrieve my knife. I dropped the bird's body to the ground below with a sniff and a sneer, then looked at the unprotected nest and the four eggs inside. My mind screamed 'food!'. If the yolks looked like anything I was used to I'd try it. MREs were not my meal of choice.

The eggs fit snuggly in one of the pack's pouches. And I hadn't been attacked yet or heard anything like the clicking and chattering 'friend' had made, so I figured I was safe enough for now.

Here I'd thought I'd been pretty damn smart to figure out getting to a higher vantage point, and all I could see was more and more forest. Something bigger than a horse flew over the trees in the distance and I hugged the trunk so tight the sap soaked into my hair, trying to become invisible. I was officially scared shitless. A lone human woman trapped on an alien planet where they didn't believe in camaraderie and the horses flew and the birds ate you and the giant squids walked the earth. Up until then I'd kept myself calmer thinking there was some hope, some way to get off, a lot of that having to do with the fact that I was with another humanoid who seemed like he knew what he was doing.

Fucker.

The horse bird flew off in the opposite direction and disappeared in the clouds as a small speck, but I was under the impression now that the birds here stuck together in twos. I wasn't chancing running into it's mate. I wrapped both arms around the trunk and allowed myself to slide down slowly, then kept moving in the same direction the river had flowed. Whatever took me away from all the goddamn aliens.

I didn't have a plan. What kind of plan was I suppose to make on a completely different planet? My waterproof digital watch/compass was useless. It kept scrolling nonstop across the different directions, back and forth without stopping, like it didn't even know where it was. The poles here were all kinds of screwed up. There was no choice now but to keep walking until I found something similar to shelter, and even then, any cave or hollow tree I found was probably occupado with something else that wanted to eat me. I hated it, but I felt completely lost.

I walked. That was the plan. Keep moving. I walked. And walked. Killed another of those furred snakes with my bowie. And walked. The scenery barely changed, but my watch told me I had walked in the same direction for three hours. Surely there was some kind of civilization or at least a clearing on this planet.

Surely.

"There has to be something else on this rock," I whispered breathlessly to myself. "Has to be."

Fifteen minutes later the ground finally inclined. The small drop-off gave way to brighter sky between the trees, and my heart jumped a little. I fought myself not to run for sunlight, for open air, for something to stave off the humidity that was clogging my lungs and sticking my clothes to my body.

I walked into a campsite in a crouch, rifle at the ready, and wished I had kept my thoughts to myself.

The clearing was one giant campsite made of bare trees and gore and tribal totems eleven feet tall. I froze and stared, dread seeping into my bones. Bones that could very easily litter this campsite floor very soon if I didn't leave. Because it more than likely belonged to the things that had attacked me.

Movement out of the corner of my eye. I dropped to one knee and brought the rifle up, breath held, steadily aiming at the one thing I least expected to see.

"HA."

The alien that had abandoned me was tied to one of the totems at the edge of the clearing, to the left of where I had walked out of the woods. At least I was pretty sure it was. Same taupe colored abs surrounded by dark scales. He had been stripped bare save a tattered leather loincloth covering his groin, and I finally caught a glimpse of what was under that plain, yet grossly intimidating mask of his.

It looked like an angry woman's crotch protected by tusks. I pressed a dirt covered wrist against my mouth to stifle a hysterical laugh at the thought. So they'd caught him anyway. He was the one who left me to be eaten by mutant dogs, and HE'D been the one captured. I took a step closer, peering at an angle to try and get a better look, to see if he was dead or alive to be useful, when more movement on the other side of the camp made me duck down behind the angular black totem he was tied to.

As quietly as I could, I checked my rifle and carefully pulled my bowie from it's place. Something spoke quietly. Footsteps, multiple footsteps, crunched through the mud of the campsite. Whatever it was wasn't the hunters. They were quiet as death.

"Looks like we're not the only ones being hunted."

I jumped and jerked out from behind the tree with a startled shout. "Holy shit, you're people!"

Said people were training five different guns on me now. One woman, armed, and six men, four of them well armed. All looked worse for wear, much how I imagined I looked. None of them were too keen on lowering their weapons until I flopped my arms out and back down.

"Guys, please don't shoot me. I've been through enough shit today."

Unfortunately the sound of voices also woke the bound alien. And boy was he pissed.

He jerked and yanked powerfully against the metal chains holding him with a furious snarl, tusked mandibles spread wide as his deep set gold eyes scanned the little gathering of humans. I myself jumped back as they trained their weapons instead on the alien, who quieted down to angry growls but kept his tusks spread wide in warning.

"Shut up, jackass."

The woman of their group let out an astounded gasp and stared at me. So what, she hadn't been almost killed because of him. Excuse me for taking it a little bit personal.

The alien's beady eyes found me and his top mandibles clacked together. I bared my teeth at him and took four steps closer, until I was close enough to see the tiny pupils centering the hazel irises.

"Thanks a lot for leaving me to the dogs, fucker. Now what're you gonna do? Huh?"

"What are you doing?" one of the men with glasses whispered loudly, looking around the campsite like he expected it to blow up at any second. For all any of us probably knew it could.

I ignored him and stalked around the totem, looking for the knot to the giant lizards chains. I found it and dropped my rifle back to my hip, already working on the knot amidst the creature's growls and purrs.

"That's not a good idea," the woman barked, peering frantically up at the creature through stringy dark locks.

One of the men dressed like a prisoner stomped forward to stop me. "What the fuck are you doing, bitch? Don't let that thing go!"

I paused and glared at him. "Do you really think if he was the one hunting us he'd be tied up? Don't be a fucking redneck. He can help us."

"You don't know that!" the woman insisted, panicked. "This is a mistake. We have to leave! Now!"

"Yeah, actually, I do know," I snapped, fingers digging against the hard metal chains again.

"Hey, where's the tough guy?" Specs suddenly asked.

I paused and glanced around quickly, lips pursed.

"He left us!"

Well, someone was taking that a little too personally. She sounded like a pissed off wife.

"Darwin, sweetheart," I stated matter-of-factly, then gave the alien a look. "Stop growling at me, I'm trying."

"He is here."

Several heads turned as the single black man in the group spoke with a thick African accent, right before he was impaled on an invisible weapon.


End file.
